What You're Actually Responsible For

The List That Stopped Me From Carrying Everything

There was a season where I felt responsible for everything — my team's mood, the outcome of every hard conversation, whether the people around me were okay. It was exhausting, and worse, most of it wasn't even true.

At some point I sat down and made an actual list. Not a list of tasks, but of what was really mine to own. My feelings. My attitude. My beliefs. My behaviors. My choices. My values. My limits. My talents. My thoughts. My desires. That's it. Not other people's reactions. Not outcomes I couldn't control from where I stood.

Most leadership burnout, I've come to think, isn't from doing too much. It's from carrying things that were never actually yours to carry in the first place.

If you find yourself in a similar season, write your own version of that list. Next time you catch yourself exhausted by something, ask whether it's actually on your list, or whether you picked it up because you assumed you had to.

What's one thing you're currently carrying that was never actually yours to hold?